SemiCharmed
by Duck540
Summary: When you're next in line to become one of the most powerful witches on Earth, you're supposed to care a little more. Piper's daughters have to learn to balance school with witchcraft.
1. Chapter 1

I guess from an outsider's perspective, my life seems pretty normal. Charmed, you might say. My family lives in a manor in San Francisco, my mom is a gourmet chef, and her sisters do good things within the community—ever heard of 'Ask Phoebe'? My dad is an absolute angel, and I have two wonderful sisters.

Oh, god, who am I kidding? Big (Stinky) Nasty Demons wreck the manor at least once a week. Mom is never around, due to the fact that owning (and cooking) for a nightclub is a lot of work. My aunts are…insane, to put it lightly, and my dad, the 'angel'--yeah. Left us. Plus, I'm stuck in the middle of two sisters, and my only claim to fame is that someone regularly scrawls 'bitch' on my locker door.

Yeah. Charmed, I'm sure.

At least I have friends. Well, technically, one friend, as in singular. Max Morris—his dad knows my family from…work. We met at the relatively young age of three, when I took his toys and made him cry. He had his revenge when, at the age of ten, he knocked me down a flight of stairs, effectively fracturing my collarbone. I put out two of his baby teeth, and collected the scar on my cheekbone in a rather ill-advised game of baseball in the house.

We know everything there is to know about each other—I know about his dreams of becoming an architect, and that he's gay, and he knows…well, practically everything about me. Except that I'm a witch. And except the fact that I'm hopelessly in love with him. The only downside to that being that, again, Max is gay.

Okay, I **really** can't use this for Mr. Balkney's essay.

I mean, really, what on earth am I supposed to say? If I give him the happy-skippy la-de-dah, 'my mom's the owner of a (very) successful nightclub, my aunt is a famous newspaper columnist, and the other is a fantastic social worker, and my dad? Well, he and my mom have their differences, but overall, everything is fine' spiel, either he'll see straight through it, and I'll wind up with another one-way ticket to the guidance councilor's office, or he'll believe it, and the prevalent myth that I'm just some constantly premenstrual bee with an itch will continue to prevail.

The twisted side of me is considering just handing in the truth. Honestly—what would be a better essay about 'Who I Really Am' than one about how I'm the future of a line of the most powerful witches alive? I might get extra points for creativity. Or, on the downside; mandatory counseling. Again.

Either way, I'm going to have to start at the beginning.

My locker sticks. It also has black marker smears on it, and a sizeable dent from me beating my head against it. This is what I was doing that fateful Tuesday morning before lunch, hoping that the motion would inspire a thesis for my next science paper, or that I would render myself incapable of writing it due to intense cranial trauma. Max prodded my shoulder.

"Are you going to do that all lunch period? I'm only asking 'cause there's rumors that Melody Winters is facing off with the new girl." He said, shifting his backpack from one shoulder to the other.

"And **thunk** you want to **thunk** watch this verbal **thunk** assault on some poor, hapless girl because?" I asked, finally resting my head against the locker door.

"Because, Kerry, it's like a train wreck. You can't _not_ watch." He replied, and threw the paper airplane he'd been making down the hall. Mr. Balkney stuck his head out into the hall.

"Hey, did you guys see an airplane? In the hall, just now?" He asked. Max hid a grin. I rubbed my forehead.

"An airplane, Mr. B.? It was probably just a ghost—you know these old buildings." I told him, stretching my face into a wide smile. He blinked several times, but didn't say anything. Once he was safely back in his classroom (which is really the best place for people like Mr. B, who occasionally asks my class what all the rainbow flags are for) Max let out a loud guffaw.

"You are absolutely amazing. You will totally get mentioned in my memoir."

"I better get more than just a blurb, Mr., considering all the stuff I do for you." I poked him in the chest, and opened the doors to the cafeteria.

One of the real upsides to being a complete and total social misfit is that you get your own table. Ever since ninth grade, Max and I had staked out a table in what we considered to be the best location (close to the doors, close to the vending machines) and never had to worry about anybody stealing it. After all, who would want to sit with the 'freaks'?

The new girl, apparently. She was sitting _under _our table, demurely eating a sandwich as if any part of that was normal. I raised an eyebrow and looked at Max, who rubbed his head and shrugged. '_You do it.'_ He mouthed, so I stuck my head under the table.

"Am I bothering you?" She asked.

"Not really. Is this where people eat where you're from?" I said, kneeling next to the bench.

"No," she answered, like _I _was the one eating under the table, "There's some girl who keeps throwing things at me." Max joined me on the floor.

"That would be Miss Melody Winters—Bay High's own debutante." He informed her, rolling his eyes, "Charming, isn't she?"

"As a rabid wolverine." the girl agreed, "I'm Rory."

"Kerry." I stuck out my hand, and when she took it, "Welcome to Bay High School—also known as Hell."

"Want to sit with us?" Max offered, "_At_ the table, I mean."

"What about—" Rory started, but Max cut her off.

"She won't bother us. Melody's scared of our little Kerry." He hugged me around the shoulders, and my stomach jumped at the contact. "Most people are."

"What's that on your forehead?" Rory asked me. Before **that** conversation could get sufficiently weird, my sister dropped onto the end of the bench. Max looked like his eyes would pop out of his head. Rory slid lower in her seat—I assume so she could take a dive under the table if Lin started throwing things. But Lin unwrapped her lunch and arranged her purse on the table before noticing our weird looks.

"What?" she asked me, flipping her hair back like she was really confused.

"Did you hit your head?" I said, tapping her skull, "You never sit here. You hate sitting here." Lin sighed, and made a show of putting her sandwich down. Yeah. Like she'd eat it anyway. She put her hand on my shoulder.

"Can't a girl just sit with her baby sister once in a while?" Lin asked me, eyes wide.

"Not you. And I'm not the baby, remember? Go sit with Rachel." I brushed her hand off of my shoulder.

"Hello? You might be weird and socially retarded, but at least you guys aren't prepubescent teeny boppers."

"This from the queen of teeny boppers." Max quipped. Lin ignored him. Her blue eyes landed on Rory.

"Who are you?" Lin asked sharply. "I mean, you don't normally sit here. What are you, his girlfriend?"

"Um, no." Rory replied, "I'm new." Lin looked surprised. She looked at Max, who shrugged, and then at me. I raised an eyebrow. _What?_ I asked her mentally, _She was under our table. _ Lin's eyebrows narrowed. _**Under **the table? _She looked at Rory again. _Maybe she belongs at your table, Ker, she's just as weird as you guys. _

"Oh, you're the one Mel's having a coronary about." Lin said, nodding sagely.

"Why's—" Rory started, and the bell rang.


	2. Pavlovian

Pavlov made himself famous for getting his dogs to drool when they heard a bell. As I left the cafeteria that day, I found myself wondering if the school administration had modeled their own bell system after his dog experiments. It occurred to me that I could be forever doomed to stand up and walk around whenever I heard a bell, when someone grabbed my wrist.

"Hey!" It was Rory. I sighed. The last thing I wanted to hear was some new girl complaining about her badly photocopied map.

"Can I help you?" I asked. Apparently, I am a huge masochist, because I stopped walking (which, at Bay, is a horrible idea, and will likely get you trampled) and turned to face her.

"What was that girl saying? Why's the wolverine 'having a coronary'?" She shifted her weight, annoyed. I sighed again.

"You're new." I told her shortly. She made a strangled sort of sound that might have been a scream of frustration.

"Everybody says that!" She stalked down the hall a ways, then turned back to me. "What the hell is that all about, anyway?" and then she rounded the corner and headed up the stairs.

I watched her go for a minute, and continued towards my Chem. class. There was no need to bring up the past, I told myself. She'll figure it out on her own, anyway. There was no need to tell this girl how I had managed to acquire the hatred of most of the student body. Somebody else will tell her, I thought, and she will just not sit with us anymore, and things will go back to normal.

My chemistry teacher was Mrs. Conroy. Mrs. Conroy was round, alarmingly like a basketball. She read from the textbook in a way that reminded me of a pep-squad leader, and wrote chemical equations on the board in her blocky handwriting, complete with little smiley faces at the corners to remind us that chemistry was a fun and happy thing. She was right. There is nothing more fun than inhaling toxic fumes or balancing chemical equations. I put my head down, and let my eyes close against my arm, and waited for class to be over.

"Ms. Halliwell!" Mrs. Conroy called on me, practically shaking with the excitement of chemical equations.

"Hunh?" I made a decidedly un-excited noise. This, however, coupled with the fact that moments ago, I had been asleep, apparently didn't register with Mrs. Conroy, and she helpfully repeated the question.

"Can you tell me what x equals, Ms. Halliwell?" I looked at the board. I looked at Mrs. Conroy.

"I don't know." I shrugged, and plopped my head back down.

Minutes passed like hours until finally, the three o'clock bell rang, and I sprang from my seat, a loyal Pavlovian dog. Mrs. Conroy stopped me at the door. "Are you okay, Kerry?" she asked, "It's only that you seem to be…unhappy, lately." I smiled widely, a manic, wild smile, and left without answering. What do you say to that, anyway?


	3. Jason's Boil

After the final bell, I made my way to the parking lot, and checked my bag for the car keys. Damn. Lin had them--I'd forgotten. Well, there went the idea that I could have some computer time before everyone got home. I sat on the hood of the car, my head in my hands, puzzling out where everybody else was. Mom was at work, obviously, since Tuesday night is Live Band! night and crazy busy. Aunt Phoebe would be at work, aunt Paige might be home—no, she had that date tonight. Rachel was at Science Club until seven, and Lin was…waving a set of car keys in my face.

"Jesus," she said, "Kerry, you've **got** to stop spacing out like that. It makes you look like a stoner, hon." I climbed into the passenger seat.

"Just drive." I told her sharply.

"Eew, **somebody's **PMS-ing." I ignored her, and we drove slowly home.

I always made a point not to talk to Lin while she was driving. Usually, because Lin plus anything involving wheels or heavy machinery equals bad, but also because she tended to get talkative in the car, and what would be the point of having one sentence come out of my mouth rather than none, anyway? So, as usual, as we drove down busy streets on our way home, Lin chattered, and I stared out the window.

"So, anyway, then _Jason _went off about it, you know Jason, right? That, guy, you know? With the…" Lin gestured around her face for a minute, then dropped her hand back to the wheel, "okay, with that _humongous _freaking boil on his _face,_ I don't even know _how_ he managed to get so popular—must be the car, because he like, drives a frikkin' Beamer," A large pickup truck cut us off, and Lin swerved violently. I grabbed at the dashboard, my fingers scrabbling for purchase, as Lin kept talking.

"You keep twisting your face up like that, and you are going to have wicked bad wrinkles, Kerry. What was I saying? Oh, right, Jason…"

By the time we pulled into the driveway, my eyes were wide as saucers, and I was sure that I'd been scared out of another year's growth. I unlocked the door, then bolted for the kitchen. There was a note on the counter, as usual, filled with the various and sundry things my family felt the need to write about. For example, the first one read, simply;

Rachel—what did you do with the drill? I want it back. Don't stay up too late working on that…thing you're building; Love, mom.

Then;

PAIGE, it read, in my aunt Phoebe's handwriting, STOP PLUGGING UP THE GODDAMN SINK, angrily and in all capitals, which was followed, in the defendant's decidedly flowery script;

I am NOT plugging up the sink, followed by;

Are too, then, in the scratchy writing of a woman incensed;

AM NOT!

My mother's handwriting appears after this, simply stating;

Grow up, the both of you! Lin, don't forget to unload the dishwasher, and toss your laundry in the laundry room when you have a chance. Kerry—got a call from your English teacher. Feed Kit.

After this, there is no more room on the paper, and nothing on the back. What would Mr. B. be calling about? I wondered as I scooped cat food into the cat's bowl. Was it the 'ghost' comment? No, I told myself, why would he bother to call Mom over something so stupid? I poured myself a bowl of cereal and plopped down at the kitchen table.


End file.
